The basis for the recent debate has been Bernstein
on knowledge structures and its connection with
social realism. The substantiate focus is
about Young's notion of powerful knowledge.

MFD Young pioneered the so-called new sociology of
education in the seventies and and that became
influential to its connection with the UKOU, its
courses and readers. However Young has
recently 'repudiated' many of the central ideas,
especially those that imply 'epistemological
relativism' and has adopted social realism
instead. This has been discussed by among
others Hammersley, arguing that the old approach
at least, especially Berger
and Luckmann explained what counted as
knowledge rather than engaging in epistemological
debate. More recently, Young has
distinguished between powerful knowledge and
knowledge of the powerful, again leading to debate
with, among others, John White, who accuses it of
supporting a traditional stance towards education
and the school curriculum. For Young, the
knowledge of the powerful refers to knowledge
authorized by those in power, leading to the need
for sociological investigations of power relations
and legitimacy. However, it focuses
excessively on the knower rather than the
knowledge [sounds like Bernstein, or at least Maton].

Powerful knowledge itself was developed first in a
talk, as a working definition: it refers to the
structure of knowledge [presumably Bernstein
again and the idea of progress through explanatory
power, and its claimed consequences:

'It provides
reliable and in a broad sense "testable"
explanations of ways of thinking [lots to
discuss with these terms];It is the basis for
suggesting realistic alternatives [this term
too];It enables those who
require it to see beyond their every day
experience [experience does that too?];It is conceptual as one is
based on evidence and experience [repeats the
points above really]; it is always open to
challenge [in principle, less so in practice]
;It is acquired and
specialist educational institutions, staffed
by specialists [happy coincidence of knowledge
and institutions preserves the monopoly
of universities -- not even
commercial research institutions are allowed
in?];It is organized into
domains with boundaries that are not arbitrary
and these domains are associated with
specialist communities such as subject and professional
associations [more monopolies];it is often but not always
discipline based [weaselly] '(179)

Beck has written a paper with Young focusing on
initial teacher training and attempts to redefine
what counts as professionalism. In essence,
this has been seen as 'narrow and competency
oriented', with coercion to conform to standards
enforced by the Teacher Training Agency or
Ofsted. Traditional educational disciplines
have been cut out [radicals could not even prevent
that!!] . On the job training has
increased. Alternative forms of
understanding have been restricted. The
whole thing can be seen as an attempt at
disempowering worker organisations and empower
management, in a form of '"coercive
deprofessionalisation"'. However, this is
not just a matter of true vs. false, or a
misrecognition [in that epistemological sense?],
because there can be no true profession and no
decisive empirical evidence [well, Bourdieu does
his best?].

The concept has been used to criticise vocational
education and competency movements inside youth
training, again on the grounds that students
knowledge is restricted to the context of
workplaces and to particular skills. In
particular, students miss relational connections
within and between fields, and this is provided
only by access to the academic disciplines.
Social control and docility is implied as before,
since government and employers have decided what
counts as suitable relevant knowledge.
Students have no epistemic access to the structure
of knowledge.

There is also the issue of the connection between
particular kinds of knowledge and status, as in
the work of Bourdieu.
Arbitrary classifications of culture lead to a
split in terms of aesthetic judgments and the
relation to culture, and these verdicts are
extended to practices of social closure.
Reproduction of privilege is the hidden
structure. Beck wants to connect some of
this work with the neoWeberian work on education,
including Collins and Parkin on class
closure. Access to the arts in particular
seems prestigious, despite offering only useless
knowledge, as Maton's commentary on the 'two
cultures debate' noted. Scientific knowledge
is too esoteric and largely unintelligible to
outsiders.

There are problems, however, when we come to
consider the notion of powerful knowledge in
education. Empowering some individuals might
help them manipulate others, for example, so we
need additional moral criteria. Empowering
knowledge need not necessarily be true knowledge
[a problem with Popper and explanatory power], and
some sociological analysis of the use of knowledge
seems required. Powerful knowledge might
also be implicated in domestication as in
Foucault. Gellner can also be cited on the
role played by both reason and empiricism, which
questions whether scientific knowledge can ever be
foundational or sufficient: nevertheless,
apparently he thought that there was '"external,
objective, culture transcending knowledge"'[he
uses this in the struggle with Winch]. This is
'Enlightenment Rationalist Fundamentalism' (185),
where the principles and forms of knowledge are
seen as absolute, compared to facts and observers.
This is Gellner's 'cognitive ethic', and he can
also claim considerable practical success for the
knowledge it implies, another sense of powerful
knowledge. It is compatible with industrial
society, and thus produces considerable benefits,
and some coldness and impersonality.

Gellner is less clear whether social studies can
produce similar powerful knowledge, although he
opposed relativism in favour of real constraints,
and found many common characteristics between
social and natural sciences. However, social
scientific knowledge is not particularly
contested, not consensual, and there is no real
notion of progress if paradigms change - indeed,
there is sometimes a return to an earlier model
[much as this paper demonstrates itself, turning
back to the old London University heroes].

More problems affect esoteric knowledge. The
argument so far has been, following Bernstein,
that commonsense knowledge is not the same as
specialist knowledge, which features abstract
concepts operating beyond every day
awareness. Gellner thought that this was so
even for social sciences. The issue then
becomes one of giving disadvantaged pupils access
to such knowledge, highlighted as a major issue by
Whitty [the inevitable return of Geoff Whitty!]
. The additional problem is then relating it
back to everyday lives. The whole
emancipatory potential arises from the autonomous
nature of disciplinary knowledge, and 'this in
turn is closely linked to its selfreferential
character' (187), the eternal relations of
concepts focused on internal problems.

However, this also provides a problem with gaining
'effective epistemic access', since this requires
initiation. Scientific communities can also
become narcissistic. This produces an
extremely 'challenging and enduring educational
problem'. There is a connection with 19th
century debates about really useful knowledge [see
Johnson] , which was
seen then as something that needed to be developed
outside formal schooling - Beck thinks there are
fewer possibilities today [he's never heard of the
Web?]. There is also another tension
relating to the issue of breadth and
specialisation [stone me! We will be back to White
and the arguments for a compulsory curriculum
soon]. If the aims are to see through
distorted communication and to help people make
autonomous decisions, it is difficult to find the
space to do this or to get 'students to take them
seriously'[at last, the student!]. This
problem is emerging with attempts to spread
citizenship education, for example common to find
a place for it amid core subjects and the general
'cultural performativity'.

Yet schools must select and prepare a fraction to
become specialists [as in functionalism?]
, and this might be increasing. Knowledge
itself has become more specialist and global as
the intellectual division of labour grows
Longer degree courses might be required
[lovely! More business!]. Schools in
England and Wales have pushed students into making
early subject option choices, paradoxically after
the end of key stage three national testing.
New models like the English Baccalaureate may not
counteract this tendency, especially if the menu
remains as a set of traditional disciplines not
more relevant ones. Increased competition
for places in elite universities is another
factor, especially when accompanied with the
rhetoric of widened access - students lacking
cultural and economic capital seem to require
longer and more intensive specialist study.
Private schools offer specialist subject teaching
early too.

There is another tension in that esoteric
knowledge is associated with high culture, as in
Weber on the Chinese literati [or Bourdieu
again]. Personal success with esoteric
knowledge leads to cultural and social power,
especially if it is extended to informal as well
as formal processes. Turner on sponsored and
contest social mobility [stone me again!] noted
that early sponsorship used to be the answer for
able but working class students. Halsey also argued
that grammar schools created cultural
capital. However, Bourdieu has always argued
against the autodidact ever being at ease. So
actually extending epistemic access is going to be
difficult [!!] The government currently
wants to narrow curricular experience, and also
separate academic and vocational education.
The tensions discussed above the long lived.
At least there is more debate again these days
[but using very old resources], and some
government sponsored reforms have been optimistic,
including those led by Pring or Alexander.
Furedi and Ecclestone are also welcome. So
vigorous discussion is likely to ensue [more
edbiz!].